Cheryl Chow Day : Coming out for a colleague

Seattle leader Cheryl Chow is kissed by her daughter Liliana Morningstar-Chow, 4, as the Seattle City Council, background, applauds after the former council member and school board member was honored on Monday, September 17, 2012 at Seattle City Hall. Chow has brain cancer and is battling the illness. As what she calls her last crusade, Chow recently came out as a lesbian and introduced her partner Sarah Morningstar, left. Chow hopes that by coming out she can empower young people struggling with their sexual identity. (Photo by Joshua Trujillo, seattlepi.com)

Much of Seattle’s political leadership from the past two decades showed up at Seattle City Hall on Monday, to honor a former council member battling brain cancer who is waging what she describes as a “last crusade.”

Cheryl Chow recently came out as a lesbian, targeting her message to the kids she taught for years.

Cheryl Chow Day honored a civic multi-tasker. Chow served two terms on the Seattle City Council, and later was elected to the Seattle School Board. She did stints as a no-nonsense acting principal at Franklin and Garfield High Schools, and in spare time coached the Seattle Chinese Girls Drill Team for half-a-century.

The school board’s Steve Sundquist summed it up, in a video prepared by the Seattle Channel and reported by The Stranger, saying: “Everything she was about was advancing the welfare of children.”

She delivered a moving message about her sexual orientation, and what she described as a “last crusade”:

“Why did I come out after 66 years of being in the closet and quietly being gay?” she asked. “I want kids out there — Asian, white, black, Filipino, whatever — to pick up the newspaper and say to their parents, ‘Look, you’ve been voting for Cheryl Chow for years. You’ve been supporting her. And you didn’t see anything wrong with her being gay. So what’s wrong with me”?”

Chow came from a prominent Seattle family. Ruby Chow, her mother, ran a successful restaurant and became a political power in the community: Ruby Chow later sat on the King County Council.

She disclosed her sexual orientation in a KING-5 News interview earlier this summer, declaring:

“Parents and kids, don’t be afraid of saying that you are gay. I was afraid for more than 60 years, and those 60 years were wasted.”